Square D Partners with Softshare to Bring EDI Capabilities to its Suppliers

Softshare's suite of e-commerce products offers affordable and user-friendly EDI solutions to Square D suppliers

Santa Barbara, CA. and Toronto, ON, October 9, 2001 – Softshare Inc., an e-commerce business solutions provider, announced today that Square D, a market-leading supplier of electrical distribution products, has selected Softshare's Internet-based EDI (electronic data interchange) solutions to increase its base of EDI-enabled suppliers.

Judith Loyd, Staff Buyer for North American Systems Development at Square D, believes that Softshare is the key to meeting her goal of 100% EDI compliance among suppliers. "Softshare's EDI solutions are easy to use and very affordable," she said. "With the common stumbling blocks of expense and technical difficulty removed, our suppliers are much more willing to embrace EDI."

"Making the switch to Softshare was extremely simple," said Steve Stanko, Vice President of Sales at Ott Packagings, Inc., a long-time Square D supplier. "Their products are easy to use and Softshare's customer service is top-notch. And, to top it off, we are paying less for our EDI solution than before."

A number of solutions are offered to Square D suppliers as part of the partnership between Softshare and Square D. For those suppliers that handle a very low volume of EDI documents, Softshare offers Softshare Athena®, an affordable, Web-based EDI application that requires only a Web browser to run. For those suppliers that see more than a handful of EDI documents each month, Softshare offers Softshare Vista®, a sophisticated, Windows-based desktop EDI application. Suppliers needing EDI integration can enhance Vista's operations with Softshare Delta®, Softshare's universal data translator which is flexible enough to handle a variety of data formats and business scenarios.

All solutions provide Square D suppliers with everything they need to accept EDI documents from Square D. In addition, Square D suppliers can exchange EDI (or XML) documents with other e-commerce trading partners.

About Square D
Square D is a market-leading supplier of electrical distribution, industrial control and automation products, systems and services. Square D is the flagship brand of the North American Division of Schneider Electric, one of four geographic divisions of Schneider Electric, which is headquartered in Paris, France. Additional information can be found on Square D's Web site at http://www.squared.com.

About Softshare
Softshare (www.softshare.com) offers a multi-tiered approach to e-commerce with EDI/XML software solutions that range from Web-based applications to fully integrated server applications. Supporting these applications is Softshare's value added network and accessible customer service. Headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, Softshare has more than 20,000 clients using its various network, software, and EC services. For more information, call 800-346-6703 or e-mail dianes@softshare.com.